What I’m up to

-Writing

I’m writing again, trying to finish already begun projects before starting more. I’m still adjusting to my new schedule, and other things (many listed in the “personal” section of this update).

-BookLove

I started out August with three weeks of reviews done, edited and posted, pending publication. Now I’m ending the month with a week’s advance cushion space. It’s been that kind of month, no, it’s been that kind of year.

-Personal

I am on the edge of some massive personal changes. I’ve already talked about some of the ongoing “projects” in my life, like our housing troubles, new schools all around, job shifts and I’ve got a few things going on that I’m just not going to talk about in a public forum.

Well here’s the other part. Now that both kids are in school I’m looking at where my life goes from here. I have an eight hour block to myself five days a week and I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what to do with it.

The sad, sad choice is that it’s simply irresponsible of me to think that I can be a stay-at-home writer at this point in my career. I’m starting to have some success, definitely, but it’s not coming close to paying the bills, or even offering more than a nice dinner out with the family, and maybe a trip to the bookstore.

My choices now are to say fuck it, I believe in myself and I’m willing to risk everything on the slim chance that someday in the future I’ll be able to support myself, and my family with my writing. Beside there being nothing even resembling a clear pay off to this method, especially with as turbulent as publishing and the economy are there’s not even enough forward progress at this point. There’s the opportunity for forward progress, but I’m already taking advantage of it the best I feel I can so a big block of writing time just doesn’t seem like the best use of my time.

One of the things I don’t speak about often is that my husband has a spine injury and while it’s managed most days right now chances are very high he’ll get to learn how to use a wheelchair in the next ten to fifteen years. I don’t know if any of you have tried to live off disability, but I know people who have and it’s not going to cut it for a family of four.

Which brings me to the prospect of getting a job, and it’s accompanying problem, I haven’t had a job since I had to quit working at Subway due to pregnancy problems with my now 9 year old son. That’s a long time to employers, and while I’ve got plenty of other experiences that I can use to my advantage most of them are only really applicable in the publishing/bookselling industry, which is in a tough place right now. If I could get a position, even a basic one, at a bookstore, it could be the start of something. But I don’t see what, other than a pay check, the kind of job I could get right now (and people have told me even thinking I can get a McDonald’s job these days is an over estimation on my part) would do to build not just a paycheck, but something I can support, or contribute to the support of my family with.

The point is that minimum wage jobs don’t support a family, and that’s my end goal. How do I jump from being a stay at home mom/special needs caretaker of 10 years to making a better than minimum wage, with the potential to completely support our family if the need arises?

So I’m considering going back to school as well. I already have one and a half years of credit, so there exists this potential for me to find a “career” (a “real” one because we all know the only career for me is writing) that won’t take a huge investment of time, but will still allow me to contribute to, and maybe even replace my husband’s paycheck if need be.Let’s just toss aside all issues about paying for school (which I can’t really do since we cannot afford a drain on the finances which is why all this is coming up anyway) I still don’t know what to go to school for, because I want to sell books, not get distracted by other things. But that’s just not happening right now.

So you see my circular musings here. There’s no bad answer, really, but there’s not exactly a clearly superior one either.

Plus I turn thirty next week, and the people I see around me have either thrown themselves into being as successful as possible or appear to be stumbling their way through life just reacting to things that they could have prevented or controlled or enjoyed if they’d planned, or thought things out.

I don’t want to be here, at this level of writing success, in ten years. I need to not be here because it will break me to spend so much time with nothing to show for it. I’m not talking about giving up writing, just the grind of publishing. I do feel that I have come pretty far in the last few years and I want to see that continue. I’m pretty sure it will, but I have to take advantage of the support, the time, and the good health we have now to try to decide how to set myself, and my family, up for more success as time goes on.

I guess it’s about doing the best I can, and while I love where I am now, publishing and career wise, if this is the best I can do then it doesn’t warrant an eight hour a day/five day a week work habit.

Oh yes, and if you follow me on Twitter you’ll notice something else–I’m learning to drive for the first time and both intimidated and complete silly-feeling about the whole thing. It’s a ridiculous combination of feelings about something that so many people learn to do as teens. But it sort of reminds me of my silly reaction to going on the birth control pill. It was a year after my daughter was born and my first thought was “OMG I’m not responsible enough to be on birth control and remember to take a pill every day.”

Go ahead, laugh at the incredible silliness of a woman with TWO kids thinking being on birth control is all responsible and adult like. I know I laughed at myself a lot over it.

So I’ll leave you there for tonight, because it’s pretty clear I have more thinking and growing to do.